


Indecipherable Text

by MagalaBee



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, I love the idea of Lin snooping with his teleport magic, In which Lin gets sneaky with banned books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:01:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26442376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagalaBee/pseuds/MagalaBee
Summary: After learning the Teleport spell, Linhardt decided that he wanted to see just how much he could do with it. After school hours, he sneaks into Seteth's office, where a shelf of forbidden books hold untold information.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	Indecipherable Text

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic I wrote for the amazing Naptime: Linhardt Fanzine!!! Please go look them up if you want to see other great Linhardt material, you won't be sorry. 
> 
> Hope everyone enjoys!

Each book had a spine more aged and cracking than the last. Old leather and frayed linen bound by cracking threads, from eras before Fodlan’s modern glue binding methods. They were treasures and Linhardt marveled for a moment, that he was able to touch them at all.

He wasn’t supposed to be in here, of course, Seteth’s private office was out of bounds for students to wander. But Linhardt had been studying his Faith magic diligently, and since he learned how to Warp himself, no locked door had been able to keep him from his studies. He’d only had to wait until the right time of evening when the professors were retiring to their personal quarters but before the knights began their patrols. It was a narrow window, but he had feigned needing a nap after dinner and no one had questioned it.

“What secrets are you keeping?” Linhardt murmured to the books. He couldn’t decipher some the text pressed into their covers. They were either very old Fodlanese or written in entirely different languages.

He picked one, his fingers lingering on the smoothness of its spine. Linhardt didn’t know what kind of leather it was, but it hadn’t cracked or wrinkled nearly as much as the others. It almost looked new, save for the flaking gold leaf that had been embossed in the cover text. It was strange.

Linhardt couldn’t read this one, it looked to be written in some kind of foreign text. Maybe Almyran or Dagdan? He flipped through the pages anyway, and while most of it was indecipherable, there was one word that caught his eye.

Zanado.

“My, my, I think you’re quite a talkative little book, if only I could read you,” he whispered, turning over the next page carefully and smirking as he found old sketches.

They were nothing like the beautiful artwork of modern Fodlan, none of the realism or anatomy that Bernadetta and Ignatz tried to capture. It was an old style, drawn rudimentary but impactful nonetheless. Shapes of what looked like dragons , with large white wings and long white claws. People bowing to them in between, on their knees in some kind of prayer position.

“Fascinating,” Linhardt smirked to himself and leaned back, flopping into Seteth’s chair. As he did, his elbow brushed too quickly by the desk and he knocked over a quill, which in turn flipped Seteth’s whole inkwell onto the floor with a loud clink and clatter.

“Dammit--!” Linhardt hissed, recoiling his feet from the spilled ink and cracked glass. While he could put a quill and well back, there would be no hiding the ink which was thick and too dark to clean out of stone bricks completely. It would leave a permanent shadow.

He couldn’t get out of this without Seteth catching on that something had happened here.

Linhardt looked at the book in his hands. “Look what you started,” he muttered. “Now I’m going to have to drag a cat in here and stage some kind of natural mishap.”

The book, naturally, did not reply.

Linhardt gently closed the ancient text and placed it back on the shelf, sticking out a bit so he could grab it again easily. While it might not outwardly look like a crestology tome, he was sure that something in there was relevant. Something in those runes was going to be valuable, otherwise Seteth wouldn’t keep it locked up like he did.

He sighed, pushing the chair back and kneeling on the floor to better examine just how much damage the inkwell had caused. Some of it had splattered onto the small floor rug beneath the desk, which only made Linhardt groan at his own negligence.

That was when he heard footsteps.

“--And I’m telling you that you can’t keep making these kinds of decisions on your own--”

Seiros must hate him. Linhardt could hear the very man whose office he had defaced approaching the door, but he wasn’t alone. There were two sets of footfalls, and a soft, heavy shush of long fabric trailing the stone monastery floors.

“You are not in a position to question me about this, Seteth,” it was Archbishop Rhea with him.

Linhardt panicked and scrambled through the spilled ink to get under the desk, scrunching his legs in to keep himself completely hidden.

The door knob jostled as it was unlocked and the two came in.

“Time and time again, Byleth proves themself to be out of their element and far too novice to be teaching students who are practically their same age,” Seteth continued, his voice as firm and hyper articulate. 

“Time and again Professor Byleth proves themself capable and intuitive in leading students through dangerous situations,” Rhea countered. 

The two of them were walking closer, the door shut behind them. Linhardt held his breath and tried to think of what to do. If he was caught, he’d be expelled at best and sent home to Enbarr where he would be chastised and scolded by both his parents then forced to learn swordsmanship from his father--

The very thought of drawing blood made him nauseous.

He had to get out of here.

Footsteps drew closer to the desk, and Linhardt heard a small creak of the wood as one of them leaned against it. Probably Seteth, indignant with his arms crossed. 

“Excuses don’t make them qualified for this role. How do you imagine our other professors feel? They had to work years for their degrees and certifications to prove themselves, and Byleth simply walks into a job? Why Rhea? Because they’re Captain Jeralt’s child, or something else?”

Linhardt pinched his eyes trying to focus through the adrenaline and their voices. Part of him wanted to hear where this conversation went, but he couldn’t afford to be seen, and it was only a matter of time before someone noticed the ink on the floor.

_ Warp, Warp, Warp yourself, Lin, it’s how you go in here-- _ he thought desperately as he started reciting the spell’s incantation in his head.

“You know why,” Rhea’s tone turned stern and hard.

Seteth began to counter. “I need you to tell me in earnest--”

And Linhardt released his held breath, his whole body clenching as he finished the incantation and in a blink, he was outside, huddled on the courtyard’s grass, rather than scrunched beneath the desk.

“...Thanks, Seiros,” he whispered to himself, smiling and quietly laughing under his breath. He had managed to get away with it, even if he’d had to leave the book behind.

Standing up, Linhardt began to wonder when he could try again. How he could borrow some kind of translation book from the library and bring it with him. He’d have to identify the old language first, but it might not be hopeless.

“I’ll bring an Almyrn and Dagdan dictionary next time,” he muttered under his breath, beginning to walk back towards his dorm room as the stars began to twinkle into view above. “Maybe a Brigid one too? Or Sreng? ...Maybe I should just tell Hubert.”

He chuckled to himself again and yawned, beginning to feel exhausted after the evening’s excitement.

“Nah, too much work.”


End file.
